Pageant of the Masters – The Big Picture

As I mentioned the other day, I have a Summer To Do List. I call it my Summer Manifesto. I'm quite proud of us. We've been busy scheduling and checking things off the list which has made it quite a lovely and busy summer so far.

I just got back from a weekend in New York, which I will write about later (I have sooo much to tell you!), even though it wasn't on my list. I promise.

So, every summer, Laguna Beach turns into Art Festival Central. It is THE place to go for all the local art fabulousness which Orange County has to offer.

And every year as part of the Festival of Arts they put on what is called The Pageant of the Masters. We don't usually go to the pageant every year, but this year the theme is The Big Picture which encompases two of our favorite things: art and movies. Yes, please.

The bowl in which this takes place is a beautiful outdoor amphiteatre which I could show you, except for I took my life in my hands trying to take our silly-grainy-hand-held-we-were-here photo. It's a good thing the iPhone Photo Police were so quick to stop me from revealing the Secrets of the Bowl, but that's not important right now.

The show started after dark, which was around 8:30 pm, so the first decision (clearly) was where shall we eat? Laguna has dozens of terrific little restaurants, but my people reminded me that we have that beautiful, brand new farmhouse table, and didn't I say that I wanted to eat outdoors as often as possible and could I please make my picadillo, please-mom-please?

We made it to the Pageant which had this fantastic life-sized mural of one of the masterpieces depicted in the show, The Trevi Fountain from the film, Three Coins in the Fountain. (Note to self: must find that so we can show it on one of our Outdoor Movie Nights. But, again, that's not important right now.)

But it made for a great photo backdrop.

No, the Darbys are not in Rome. This is Laguna Beach. Fabulous backdrop, no?

Jonathan had been to the pageant when he was very young and didn't remember much about it. He gave me the disclaimer: "You know, Mom, I'm not too much into art. " Which then led to the discussion that it wasn't so much the art, but the art of the decpiction of the art. (I'll wait until you wrap your brain around that last sentence. Okay? Let's continue…)

Living pictures! Those were live people! He didn't quite get it until the show started, but then it was, "What? What! Those are real people! I get it now! Wow. This is amazing."

Jon also fell in love. He has quite the crush on Audrey Hepburn.

An amazing show. If you're in Laguna over the summer months, you should definitely take in the Festivals and most definitely the Pageant.

It's kind of hard to understand until you can see The Big Picture. (<–see what I did there?)